Maxime de la Rocheterie on Marie-Antoinette

"She was not a guilty woman, neither was she a saint; she was an upright, charming woman, a little frivolous, somewhat impulsive, but always pure; she was a queen, at times ardent in her fancies for her favourites and thoughtless in her policy, but proud and full of energy; a thorough woman in her winsome ways and tenderness of heart, until she became a martyr."

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

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Unless otherwise noted, any books I review on this blog I have either purchased or borrowed from the library, and I do not receive any compensation (monetary or in-kind) for the reviews.

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Thursday, December 10, 2015

The so-called “Muslim terrorists”, then, do not think of themselves as
“Muslim terrorists”. They consider themselves to be the only real
followers of Mohammed. They see themselves as doing exactly what he and
his first followers did in the saga of a rapid conquest of much of the
African, Arab, and Middle Eastern worlds. The conquest of Europe would
complete the stymied efforts at Tours and Vienna, victories that allowed
Europe to remain Europe and not become Muslim much sooner. Moreover,
jihadists have a perfectly intelligible explanation for what they are
doing and how they are doing it. It is a sophisticated intellectual
theory deftly designed to explain exactly why these “terrorist” acts are
both legitimate and indeed praiseworthy in the eyes of Allah. The
voluntarist metaphysics behind such reasoning is by no meant unfamiliar
to western thinkers. And it is this intellectual battle that we are
unwilling to or unable to fight.

Briefly, the assigned mission of Islam is to conquer the world for
Allah. Submission to Allah is the highest human good. Any means to carry
it out is good if it is successful. Carrying out this mission, in this
view, is a Muslim’s vocation. With the re-establishment of the
caliphate, this mission can now recommence. No other religion or its
symbols, including ones more ancient than Islam, are allowed within its
conquered territories. The fact that many individual Muslims may not
agree with this interpretation is irrelevant. There are millions that do
agree. But numbers are not the key factor.

Fear rules both the Muslim and western cultures that oppose the
jihadists or are its victims. This fear is kept alive by methods of
warfare, shrewdly applied, that utilize modern technology but rely on
old and reliable techniques. Muslims fighters learned some time ago that
modern weapons are not particularly effective against them. Slitting
the throats of ten Christians on international TV is more effective than
weapons of mass destruction, which they would also like to possess. We
see that trucks and cars are often feared means of their warfare.

Thus, tanks and bombs are not particularly effective against individual
and seemingly random attacks on enemy homelands. With local passports
and cell phones, small arms, home-made bombs, and knives, any large
western city can be brought to its knees for several days. It is
something of a joke now to think that such things as the Transportation
Safety mechanisms we have in airports make much difference. The downing
of a Russian passenger plane may still happen, but attacking schools,
buses, trains, churches, or just random individuals anywhere in the
world will instantly be on international news with the usual
disclaimers. Bringing down passenger planes may be an obsolete means in
terms of effectiveness.

As long as we choose (and it is a choice) not to identify the problem
the more it is successful and the more it will grow. That growth may
indeed be the reason it is not identified. The deeper problem lies in
the truth of Islam’s mission to conquer the world for Allah. If it is
true, that is, if the Qur’an is a revelation of God, then it will
eventually win. Even if it is not true or from God, as I do not think
that it is, even in Christian apocalyptic terms, it may well win. If our
view of the world is cast in terms of relativism, of diversity theory,
of pacifism, we really have no clue about that is happening. One cannot
but admire the logic and abiding persistence within Islam to continue
its centuries-long, Allah-given mission to conquer the world. (Read more.)

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